Are utilities shirking responsibility?

Many Midwest utilities are under state mandates to increase their energy production from renewable sources. But instead of developing their own projects, they have turned north to satisfy the rules.

In looking to Manitoba for its hydro power, utilities such as Excel Energy from Minnesota and Wisconsin Public Service–which serves the northeast and central parts of the state–have absolved themselves from the politics of developing renewable efforts like wind farms, solar panels and dams and shoved the debate north.

Wind farms have become a pariah of renewable energy in rural Wisconsin, as people who bought land with beautiful views atop hills claim the turbines are dangerous, loud, and they don’t want them near their homes. Various proposals have come and gone to put wind turbines off the coast of the state in Lake Michigan.

Dams aren’t really an option any more south of the border. Wisconsin has the most-dammed up river in the country with more than 50 dams along the Wisconsin River’s 430 miles.

Notes one Manitoba Hydro official, “In Wisconsin, they don’t have a lot of options,” for renewable power.

Environmentalists, nonetheless, contend that the utilities are shirking their responsibility by not developing renewable possibilities on their own. Utilities say renewable energy is renewable energy no matter where it comes from. They also cleanse their guilt by agreeing that the power not come from the huge mega dams in northern Manitoba, which have erased native lands under water, although the source of energy once it gets to the states is next to impossible to determine. The power comes from northern Manitoba to a station in North Dakota and then to Duluth to help power mines in northern Minnesota. After that it comes into Wisconsin.

Utilities in Wisconsin were able to lobby the state last year to change the law in order to allow it to ink a $500 million deal with Manitoba Hydro for it to supply Wisconsin Public Service Corporation. Manitoba Hydro also has a preliminary agreement to sell $2 billion worth of power to Wisconsin Public Service Corporation starting in 2018.

Utilities in Wisconsin are required to ensure that by 2015, 10 percent of the electricity they sell will come from renewable sources. A bill that would increase that load to 25 percent by 2025 failed last year.

Illinois requires 75 percent of its renewable energy come from wind. Ohio says half of its renewable energy must come from in-state.

In 2010, Minnesota received 14 percent of its electricity – mostly hydropower – from Canada, while Wisconsin imported 3.4 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Manitoba Hydro also hired lobbyists to try and make the Wisconsin bill broader to include all hydro power created in the province. The Wisconsin law requires that energy can only be counted as renewable from dams built after 2011. Manitoba Hydro happens to be spending some $5.6 billion on a generating station on the Nelson River,  and is planning another $5 billion station—the world’s largest—to be online in 2023.

Manitoba Hydro power first came to the states in North Dakota in the 1960s.

Manitoba, however, has had a long history of ignoring local input on its damming of major rivers in the far north of the province and stomping on public preferences to save major portions of its native lands.

When it first began major hydro projects in the northern part of the province the early 1970s, Manitoba Hydro didn’t inform its native communities, also known as Frist Nations, its intent to move several communities that would soon be under water. It went ahead with one of the most ambitious hydro projects in the world—spending billions to divert the flow of the historic Churchill River to the Nelson River—relatively unchecked.  The Nelson River is by far the workhorse for Manitoba Hydro. Known for its high-velocity currents, it’s been all but dammed up now.

Those moves went along with the Canadian philosophy of treating First Nations as second class citizens, “assimilating” them to cities beginning in 1911 and in turn allowing alcoholism to run rampant among the newly-urbanized tribes. They also became dependent on the government for their sustenance. Since then tribes began moving back to their original communities in the 1970s and now, in some cases, will have to move again because they will be under water.

But since 2000 Manitoba Hydro has given the First Nations more of a piece of the action, which has caused mostly peace among the parties.

Like Wisconsin, 28 other states have renewable mandates and seven more have voluntary targets. Mandates range from 10 percent by 2015 in Wisconsin, to 40 percent by 2017 in Maine.

Obviously the U.S. is Manitoba Hydro’s top market also making it the second-largest energy trading partner with States.

Out east Hydro-Quebec is planning to export more energy as well. It’s in the process of $10.4 billion in new hydro plants and $7.8 billion in transmission lines. It’s trying to ink a deal to have its power go through New Hampshire, ultimately ending up in New York City.

 

 (Feature photo courtesy Energy Justice)